Improving Home Caregiver Independence With Central Line Care for Pediatric Cancer Patients

Home caregivers (eg parents) of pediatric patients with cancer with external central lines (CL) must carefully maintain this device to prevent complications. No guidelines exist to support caregiver skill development, assess CL competency, follow-up after initial CL teaching, and support progress over time. We aimed to achieve >90% caregiver independence with CL care within 1 year through a family-centered quality improvement intervention.

Drivers to achieve CL care independence were identified using surveys and interviews of patient or caregivers, a multidisciplinary team with patient or family representatives, and piloting clinic return demonstrations (teach-backs). A family-centered CL care skill-learning curriculum, with a postdischarge teach-back program, was implemented using plan-do-study-act cycles. Patients or caregivers participated until independent with CL flushing. Changes included: language iterations to maximize patient or caregiver engagement, developing standardized tools for home use and for teaching and evaluating caregiver proficiency on the basis of number of nurse prompts required during the teach-back, earlier inpatient training, and clinic redesign to incorporate teach-backs into routine visits. The proportion of eligible patients whose caregiver had achieved independence in CL flushing was the outcome measure. Teach-back program participation was a process measure. Statistical process control charts tracked change over time.

After 6 months of quality improvement intervention, >90% of eligible patients had a caregiver achieve independence with CL care. This was sustained for 30 months postintervention. Eighty-eight percent of patients (n = 181) had a caregiver participate in the teach-back program.

A family-centered hands-on teach-back program can lead to caregiver independence in CL care.